The COVID 19 Diaries: Working from Home in the Master Bedroom

Well as we had discussed earlier when I was on a long job I setup an office situation in our master bedroom to keep the office as a playroom for Wally and Alice during the day. This was our setup when I was on a 2 week job and on my current 7 week job (where I've been promoted to producer!). This works out well because being in the back of the house keeps me a little more isolated from the noises of the family during the day and then I have my own bathroom.

Ok but first lookit how cute and cozy our room is right now.

After my trip to the cutest cabin for my solo retreat I came back determined to find an identical or close to it fuzzy bedspread for our bed and I love it so much. It just makes you wanna get in bed.

So this seems a little odd but to keep a clear walkway, I setup the desk at the foot of the bed. This gives me a nice view out the two windows and I can see when the family sneaks in on me.

The desk is teeny and just enough room for my elevated laptop situation.

There's probably way too much stuff on it but I deem them all essential.

This little desk set was on sale at Ikea and I needed to justify buying it by saying "it'll work well when I setup the office in the master bedroom". 

I dunno how other people work but I need pens, papers, post-its, chapstick, lotion, and water. ALWAYS AT ALL TIMES NEARBY OR ELSE I FALTER.

During this pandemic I updated the office chair from the one I had before to this nifty swivel-y and pink velvet-y chair.

We made the decision to go for the chair upgrade it when we realized the work from home temporary thing was going to be long term.

The angle from here makes it look way more professional. Look at my giant bookcase of books! Oh and the desk itself we got off Amazon and it folds down and I put it in our coat closet when I'm in between jobs. I really needed it to fold away and looked at options for WEEKS until I landed on this little sweet thing. 

Not bad for a 'temporary' space right? 

It's working out well so far. We're constantly adjusting things around here with the kids, the house, and our separations of duties. This pandemic has made Matt & I a really great team. I mean, we always were but I'm really just proud of us. Yay team.

COVID-19: The kids room at Christmas

Well Thanksgiving came and Thanksgiving went and now it is the most wonderful time of the year! I used to pose her next to it and now she's helping me decorate it! THEY GROW UP SO FAST.

Here is the kids room in all it's festive Christmas glory.

I got Alice & Wally new flannel sheets from Target that are so cute. She got unicorns natch and he got dinosaurs. Here's her side. 

We got a new dresser for them! With Wally now full time using a potty (PRAISE GOD) we didn't need a lower dresser as a changing table. We found a new home for the old one and now have this behemoth that holds all their PJs and all their shorts and pants that were formerly in the closet. 

I dunno about you but it's not Christmas without a wreath on Darth Vader.

Matt's mom made this bulb garland last year and I finally hung it in a cute way. New advent calendar.. so cute.

Oh! Here is Alice's new school area. For the record this situation was bound to happen but I thought it would be years before she needed a real homework/desk area but distance learning in the time of COVID has made it jump to the top of the list. 

We been picking away at it slowly and now is it's most updated and I think final iteration. It has a magnetic board for displaying artwork, whiteboard calendar, corkboard with letters and reference numbers, a bulletin board for her friends pictures, and a hook to hang her... things. Everything a girl could need for a desk area. Who knows what will hang here in years to come...

It's just the little things that make things merry.

Ambre's family nativity set, now with our family.

And here is Wally's side.

I used some 3M command hooks to hang up some stars. Literally my favorite Christmas decorating tool. You have no idea how many of these hang in places around our house 

The kids 100% decorated this tree themselves. I think they did perfectly.

Nothing like Christmastime at home... 

My girl and my boy. Sharing a room. Best buddies. 

Happy Holidays Friends! I hope you got to deck them halls too!

COVID-19 Diaries: Halloween 2020

AH! How is it holiday time? How is this wonderful and insane year almost over? How illuminated and in a better place am I that I referred to as 2020 as "wonderful"? Look at God. Could my enthusiasm and and general feeling of hope be about the advent season, my rise above depression, my cool new job/promotion, the results of the free and fair election that gave us Joseph Biden as president and our first female elected vice president Kamala Harris from California?! ALL OF THE ABOVE! 

YES TO LIFE! YES TO STAYING IN MORE!

On the last season of the Fredrich Family show we had celebrated anniversaries, babies, and 2 birthdays. This season we've hit the high holidays. Halloween this year was different of course but in true EvY style I went a little bonkers.. maybe a LOT bonkers because this was the schedule for the day.

To make up for the lack of Halloween activities I made a "Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" carnival in the driveway. This year the kids have been obsessed with Nintendo Switch life so Wally was Mario and Alice was Princess Peach. 

The gated driveway of ours has been such a blessing this pandemic. It's often an outdoor movie theatre, it's a soccer field, a highway for scooters and tricycles, and a giant chalk canvas.

Leftover from our friend Corey's birthday are these blacklight activated chalks that works great for dance parties. 

I setup a craft/paint area and this one project that Alice went wild for which was "magic potion center" with baking soda and vinegar and glitter and just putting everything into a little jar. Entertained her for literally an hour I think.

This became snack and prize zone later.

And for games... all Great Pumpkin themed. 

COVID safe bobbing for apples. I had glued magnets on fishing poles and on the apples and drew stars on the winning apples they could earn prizes for.

I made an "I got a rock" game where you have to give Charlie Brown a rock.

The "rocks" were rock shaped bouncy balls I ordered online. 

And a lot of times I tell people, I'm really not that good an artist and I stand by that. But somehow this pandemic has made me accomplish things I find myself impressing even myself. Copying Charles Schultz's style onto toilet paper rolls to make a 'knock down can' game... come on.

Oh and a glow stick ring toss game.

I had made goodie bags for them with some dollar zone stuff and a few drive-thru trick or treat things gave us plenty of fun things and candy.

Our friends the Wishers came by and crafted with the kids too.

Seriously, these kids didn't miss a thing. We even repeated our carnival-ing the next day too.

After Halloween and before Thanksgiving I put up our new Christmas tree and did a mini "Halloween tree" thing for a few days. I'd always wanted to do it!

So that was Halloween Halloween Halloween Halloween at the Fredrich Family Farm! We celebrated Thanksgiving just the four of us at home and the house is now decked for Christmas.... ho ho ho.

The COVID-19 Diaries: August/September/October Updates

Whew, we've had a pretty big few months lately! I dunno about everyone but things feel sort of normal except that things are completely abnormal. Life goes on, we adapt, and, we celebrate. 

Alice started 1st grade from the comfort of our home and via a computer on August 17 since we live in a county where the schools did not reopen in person for the fall.

It's been a few months of up and downs educating a 6 year old via computer and without friends and recess. This is not the way we imagined the year would go obviously. There's so much crappiness about the whole thing. We're comforted with knowing she is healthy, safe, adaptable, and alive.

We've tried a few different schedules with her to see what works and different levels of involvement. We've tried just letting her be on her own, we've tried sitting with her during her class, and now we're doing the approach of leaving the door open and listening in if she needs us and checking her work and keeping her accountable. Being totally hands off doesn't work because Alice is prone to doing her own thing anyway and sometimes that 'own thing' doesn't quite make sense. Nothing is malicious but she has quite a way of viewing the world and doing things so we have to keep an eye on her. 

Because of the timing of when my job ended, we had very little time to take a 'vacation' before Alice started school. Seeing as how things with travel are complicated, we chose to just go about an hour north of home and stay by a beach for 2 nights. 

We stayed at a hotel and felt pretty safe but limited. The kids did better overnight than in years past and we liked the place so much we might return again someday.

Our anniversary week was very full and began what has felt like nonstop celebrations. Do I do this to myself every year? While I have a full time job? Or is it that I have time and I make efforts because I can and have no other options? Am I trying to make up for things we've lost by going the extra mile? 

It felt very special to mark this particular anniversary but the reminder and disappointment that I couldn't go out to dinner and have someone watch the kids and all the things that were happening that week that couldn't be celebrated the way I had imagined combined with limitations on the celebrations and because of the planning, taking very little time for myself left me back in the depression spell. I think I slept a lot on our anniversary and the day after that too. I rallied near the evening and we celebrated with a nice dinner in the backyard.

Our dear friends, who have been trying to have a baby for years were finally expecting but because of this pandemic, the celebration had to be modified. We had a masked drive-in photo booth where they could pose with friends and chat a little for about 15 people. 

Then a few of us stayed behind and had a picnic together as they opened presents. The intimacy made it so nice and we still did it up cute style. I had to send my family away the day before so I could have time to do the planning I needed to get done. My brother took the kids for 2 nights and that was so helpful. We got to be fully focused with out friends and I had time to set up guilt and interruption-free.

And then the movie I worked on years ago premiered in theaters. It had a very limited run and we went all the way to Orange County to see it. Two friends who live in the area joined us and it was so very nice. I had to take my time lamenting the fact that I was supposed to have had a big ole blowout with friends all going to see it together, then after party at our local bar... sigh. 

It was very fun to see a movie I had worked on finally. I knew all the ins and outs of the characters, the process, the whole bit. I got to wear my crew shirt and finally explain what Bubbles Inc. meant.

Most of our celebrations have been with the same group of people of our pandemic bubble so we had them over for Matt's 39th birthday movie night. I borrowed a projector from my brother and setup an outdoor movie night themed for "Sleepy Hollow" and let me tell you... I had no idea I would love it so much. I already owned most everything you see and just crafted some stuff. I keep claiming I'm not crafty and everyone calls me a liar but I guess I have upped that this year. If you already have the materials, it's a pretty cheap situation to add things that go with your theme. For the food I just had a bunch of individually wrapped snacks 'cause safety and I had these little trays and everyone had their own little movie snacks! It was seriously one of my favorite things I have ever ever done party wise. 

Lookit this adorable hand sanitizer label I made. LOOK AT IT. The whole black white and green situation made me so dang happy. 

I have been bugging Matt about buying a projector for years and this just proved me right. We projected the movie right on the Hannger, no screen even. 

With COVID, this is the only safe way to watch movies with friends so we'll TAKE IT!

The following week we threw a polar opposite party with a Saved by the 90s themed party for our friend Corey who turned 40. Lemme tell you that I am getting ridiculous with these themes but not as ridiculous as the kids dolled in their best 90s.... 

We actually had a two part to this party. Saturday we had a dance party with the grown-ups and went 'til our bones were creaking too loudly....

And Sunday we had a REMIX where our friends came back and we partied again. We had purchased a few day glow decorations and I got the idea to cut up geometric shapes from neon paper I had combined with Eric making the Hannger lights be all blacklight looking  and I had a black light for the floor and blacklight chalk, and day glow sticks that all added up to a dance party. Oh, we also bought an LED party light on Amazon that is so tiny but totally works as a dance party light and the kids and I have been using it regularly. These celebrations are such nice distractions for me both in planning and executing. It also makes me want to do serious recaps about all the parties past starting with Wally's 1st Birthday 2 years ago. I've done a lot of parties since!

The other thing I'll have to write about is I took a solo soul retreat to Big Bear last week that was... perfect. Much needed and much enlightenment. This year has been big to me as a changed human and the challenges I'm meeting regularly are daily disciplines instead of great big mountains but it took me going to a mountain alone to come to that realization. Go to the mountain.